Poverty was the most troubling issue for the Vietnamese population in 2017, despite the country’s impressive economic growth over the last decade, said a report released on Wednesday morning.

The 2017 Việt Nam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) - a nationwide survey of more than 14,000 citizens randomly selected across 63 localities, was officially released on Wednesday. - Photo thoibaonganhang.vn

According to the 2017 Việt Nam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) - a nationwide survey of more than 14,000 citizens randomly selected across 63 localities, which was officially released on Wednesday - economic concerns topped the three most important issues that the Vietnamese thought were facing the country.

Poverty and hunger got 28.47 per cent of the votes as the most pressing problem, four times higher than worries over economic growth and unemployment, which got 7.78 per cent and 7.35 per cent of the votes, respectively.

Environment issues came fourth with 7.35 per cent votes, slightly higher than concerns over corruption, which got 7.06 per cent.

The findings posed a serious question to the Government about why the Vietnamese people’s concerns over poverty and hunger continued to rise sharply through the years – higher by 3.94 per cent compared to 2016’s and 10.43 per cent over 2015’s - despite the country’s remarkable achievements in poverty elimination and economic growth.

‘Room for improvement’

The PAPI Index found that all 63 localities generally demonstrated an improvement in governance and public administration, based on surveys of the residents in six parameters, including participation at local levels, transparency, vertical accountability and control of corruption together with public administration procedures and public service delivery.

The capital Hà Nội, however, had a disappointing score of only 34.63 out of 60 in the PAPI Index and was placed in the group of poorest performers. Business hub HCM City was slightly better and was placed in the low average group, with a PAPI score of 35.88.

The best performer, Quảng Bình Province in the central region, scored 39.53, while the worst performer was the mountainous province of Lai Châu with a score of 33.

“The gap between the best performer and the perfect mark is still quite huge, indicating there is a lot of room for improvement in the coming years,” said Đặng Hoàng Giang, co-author of the PAPI 2017 report.

Last year was the seventh consecutive year of the PAPI survey nationwide to measure the performance of local authorities in meeting their citizens’ needs through face-to-face interview with the residents.